Chasing My Husband! The "Crown Prince" of the Beijing Circle Is Wildly Unruly! - Chapter 68

By the swimming pool of a brightly lit private estate, a man in black grabbed a beautiful woman and shoved her head into the water.

Glub, glub— The woman struggled frantically in terror.

Lu Jingze sat on a reclining chair with his legs crossed, watching coldly. With a slight flick of his slender fingers, the bodyguard received the order and hauled the woman up.

“Cough! Cough, cough—” She coughed violently, gasping for air. The sensation of water filling her lungs had been agonizing.

Her entire body was trembling as she crawled toward him on her knees, kowtowing repeatedly. “Master Lu, I was wrong! I’m sorry! Back then, I had no idea Wang Xinghe was yours!”

“You were only in middle school back then…”

“I couldn’t predict the future!” She was on the verge of a total breakdown. Why hadn’t her brother come to save her? If he didn’t show up soon, Lu Jingze was going to torture her to death.

“Heh. So, by your logic, you aren’t at fault at all?” Lu Jingze toyed with his phone, his gaze full of contempt for the pathetic woman kneeling before him.

“I’m wrong! I was wrong! I made a massive mistake!” Ji Yuting knew Lu Jingze was unstable, but she also knew he usually disdained laying a hand on women. She had never known his true capacity for horror until today. She was scared to death; she realized now that Lu Jingze truly had no heart.

“Oh? Tell me exactly what you did wrong. If you get it right, I might let you go.” Lu Jingze leaned back, the chair creaking rhythmically.

“I shouldn’t have stolen Wang Xinghe’s drafts… I shouldn’t have framed him for plagiarism. I shouldn’t have provoked him or forced him to give up painting. I shouldn’t have destroyed him just because he rejected my confession…”

Years ago, Ji Yuting had relied on the Lu family matriarch’s favoritism toward her brother, Ji Yuheng, to become a prominent socialite in Kyoto. She acted with total impunity. She cheated to pass her art exams and used “bonus point” policies to enter the university of her dreams.

There, she saw Wang Xinghe for the first time. She wanted him as her boyfriend because he was handsome and would make her look good. She confessed to him publicly in front of the whole class. Xinghe had been stunned, but he remained gentle. He didn’t reject her in front of everyone; instead, he led her out of the classroom to spare her feelings before telling her he didn’t want a relationship.

Ji Yuting still remembered his exact words: “I’m sorry, Ji Yuting, right? You are wonderful and beautiful, but I truly don’t want to date anyone. I brought you out here because I didn’t want you to be embarrassed. If possible, let us meet again at the peak of our art, okay?”

Incensed, Ji Yuting had slapped him. “Do you have any idea whose confession you’re rejecting? A little nobody from a small county can’t afford to offend the Kyoto Ji family! Wang Xinghe, you’ll regret this! You’ll come crawling back to beg me like a dog!”

To attend those top-tier academies, one was either a genius who scored high enough on merit, or a Kyoto local with ancestors in business or politics. Wang Xinghe had offended the Ji family, who were leeches attached to the Lu family—the same Lu family that sat atop Kyoto like a towering tree.

Lu Jingze always showed Xinghe the soft side of himself, stripped of power and money. But Ji Yuting had used that power to crush Xinghe when he wouldn’t submit. The result was his total disappearance from the art world.

“Heh. Break the fingers on her right hand, one by one,” Lu Jingze pronounced her sentence. “From this day forward, you are forbidden from ever picking up a brush.”

“Master Lu! Master Lu, please show mercy! I’ll change, I promise!” If the Crown Prince crippled her hand, how could she ever show her face again? She would fall into the mud, be discarded by the Ji family, and be forced into a hurried political marriage. She didn’t want that!

“Fine. Then let me tell you exactly what your sin was.”

“Using your privilege not to serve your country, but to crush ordinary people—that is your sin.”

“I, Lu Jingze, may be a bastard, but I have never humiliated or bullied an ordinary person who worked their way up through effort. I could step on ten thousand ants if I wanted to, but my foot has never landed on a commoner, because they only get one or two chances in their entire lives to climb higher.”

“To ruin a person’s path to changing their fate, to steal their luck… that invites divine retribution, Ji Yuting.”

“I have never used my power for evil. Those people you saw me treat with violence and bloodshed? They deserved it. If the law can’t punish scum like you, I will.”

“I am your divine retribution.”

Snap— “AHHHH!”

The bodyguards pinned her down and broke the fingers of her right hand, one by one. The scene instantly became a bloody mess. Ji Yuting’s screams were nauseating.

Lu Jingze waved a hand dismissively. “Take her to the hospital. Fix her up just enough so she can use the hand for daily life.”

He Zheng witnessed the scene, his heart racing. He had always assumed Lu Jingze’s actions were mere power-tripping, but today’s words made him re-evaluate the man. Beneath the reputation of a violent, ruthless “Crown Prince,” there sat a pair of scales seeking balance.

“President Lu, public opinion is now overwhelmingly in Mr. Wang’s favor.” He Zheng handed over a tablet.

Lu Jingze skimmed the comments. “Do you think he’ll be a little happier when he sees this?” He remembered that evening when Xinghe jumped into the moat. When Lu pulled him out, Xinghe had been curled into a ball, not struggling at all beneath the water. Drowning is agonizing, yet Xinghe hadn’t fought for air for a single second.

Lu Jingze knew then that he was in trouble. Xinghe was determined to sever every tie he had to this world.

“Zhao Yan will protect him,” He Zheng said. His voice was a bit bitter, but he had to acknowledge the power of a “First Love.” To Zhao Yan, Xinghe would always be the “White Moonlight” that could never be erased.

The two men—both pining for someone who didn’t love them back—fell into silence.

“Do you think we should go pray to the Old Man under the Moon?” Lu Jingze caught the look of loss in He Zheng’s eyes. He had never seen his efficient secretary look so vulnerable.

He Zheng smiled bitterly. “President Lu… I think we’d need to pray to Tu’er Shen (the Patron God of Gay Men). The Old Man under the Moon doesn’t handle our department.”

Lu Jingze rolled his eyes. “You certainly know a lot, Secretary He.”

He Zheng cleared his throat and quickly changed the subject. “President Lu, all your assets, shares, and ongoing projects under the Lu family name have been inventoried. The agreements are drafted. And the other matter you requested… it’s done.”

Lu Jingze nodded. “Good. We follow the old saying: ‘One red heart, two hands prepared.’ It’s time to go see the Old Man.”

Lu Jingze could ignore anyone, but he couldn’t ignore his grandfather. He Zheng sighed inwardly, worrying for what was to come.